Professor Tim Spector says 3 cups of morning drink lowers blood pressure

Having three cups of the popular drink per day is said to provide a range of health benefits

Waking up to a morning cuppa can have health benefits, it has been found. A recent study has highlighted that coffee can change the composition of gut microbes, ultimately affecting our health positively.

Professor Tim Spector revealed that it can "help reduce blood sugar and blood pressure". The research, carried out by ZOE, a company co-founded by Tim Spector, who also authored the study, investigated the beverage owing to its widespread consumption and discovered numerous benefits are associated with your daily brew.

Whether you opt for caffeine or decaf, both provide the same benefits, with Professor Tim Spector, telling Newsweek: "This novel finding shows just how insightful gut microbiome data can be in helping us to accurately decode people's diets; a crucial step in helping people to improve their diet and gut health, by feeding their microbes what they love."

In a study, published on Monday in the scientific journal, Nature Microbiology, researchers discovered the benefits of drinking include a lower risk of heart disease mortality, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers. "Coffee's health benefits are likely thanks to its complex chemical nature," explained Spector adding: "Made by fermenting beans, coffee contains hundreds of compounds that are present in both caffeinated and decaf coffee. These include a range of polyphenols, which fuel the gut microbiome and can help reduce blood sugar and blood pressure."

The scientists carried out their study by collecting information from 22,800 people in the UK and US who provided detailed dietary information, and public data from another 54,200 people in 211 other cohorts. They further studied more than 400 samples of plasma and more than 350 faecal samples, and conducted two in-vitro experiments, to investigate how coffee might impact a person's gut.

More findings suggest that the popular bevarage - often consumed in the morning - has the most significant association with gut microbiome composition out of 150 different foods tested. Researchers discovered people who have more than three cups of coffee daily have significantly higher levels of Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus, with an uptick of up to eight times compared to those who drank less than three cups monthly. Professor Tim Spector said that the study "highlights just how fussy our microbes can be" adding that "Lawsonibacter microbe hangs around in suspended animation, just waiting for a cup of coffee in order to flourish. This gives us novel insights into how we need great diversity in plants to properly feed all our gut microbes and reap the health benefits."

The data has suggested that a large amount of the bacterial strain could be the very reason why coffee has so many health benefits as it can easily turn coffee components into other compounds, boasting even more health benefits. Spector said that currently, "we don't know how this microbe impacts our health, though it may be involved in positive health impacts we can thank coffee for. This is the tip of the iceberg and shows how, with the massive sample size of ZOE's database, we can unlock many more food microbe connections, informing us how to eat for better health."